A Monster Incapable of Love
by KatLeePT
Summary: He swore he'd love her forever.


She was muttering about the stars again tonight when he left, Spike reflects sourly as he jumps down from a wall and continues along his walk. The tails of his leather trench coat flap around his legs. Usually, on a night like tonight, when he can sense the power in the Earth around him, he'd be working on his schemes in his head while enjoying being the Big Bad where all can see his actions and tremble before him.

All but two. Angel and the Slayer still haven't learned to tremble before him, but they will. He's going to defeat them and turn this entire town into a playground for his Princess. He only wishes she could stop looking at the stars so much and listening to them more than she hears him. Even more aggravating is the fact that she's been whispering more to her doll lately than she talks to him. She actually giggled at something she thought Miss Edith said tonight. Whatever it was, he's quite certain it was about him.

But she isn't well, Spike reminds himself again. He has to have patience and understanding with her. Just because he's the worst Big Bad this little Helltown has ever seen doesn't mean he has to be cruel to the woman he loves. It's the world that's meant to bow down before them. He doesn't want to harm Dru or hurt her in any way, and she has no idea that she hurts him when she whispers about him with her dolly and to the stars.

He shouldn't even be bothered by it. This isn't the first time he's given himself this stern reminder, nor is it the first time it hasn't worked. Rather he should be bothered by it or not, Dru's whisperings about him and laughter at him still burns a part of him deep down. It reminds him too much of when he was a pathetic human and his whole village laughed at him. His hands grip into fists as he remembers their screams. He made everybody who laughed at him once scream his name in their final throes of death. They never learned to like him, but they did learn to fear him.

But fear's never been enough for him. It was for Angelus and for Darla. Dru sings songs about the whole world fearing them, and the visions see sees as she sings always seem to bring her joy. As a human, Spike had dreamed of love and of doing things greater than he could ever accomplish by himself. Even now, he still dreams of love.

He does more than dream of love, he tells himself. He has love. Drusilla loves him! Then why does she whisper about him? he asks himself. Why does she want him to serve the world to her on a silver platter while giving him so little in return? Why did she used to laugh when Angelus tormented him and still longs so openly sometimes for daddy? Why does she think she exchanges whispered conversations with Miss Edith about his failures? Because, he tells himself again, she isn't right. She's sick. His Princess is sick, and the darkness in her mind isn't staying there. It's beginning to sink into her very soul.

He's seen it himself. That's why she looks at him so sorrowfully sometimes. It's why she thinks he's going to leave her one night. One night, he'll get fed up with the way her sickness makes her behavior, and he'll leave her - or so she believes, so she herself fears. But he knows himself better than any one. He'll never walk out on Dru. She's his Princess, and he'll always strive to make her happy. She might not be able to love him only just yet, but he already loves her. She's the love for whom he spent his whole human life searching.

She's the one. He'll never leave her. He'll never desert her. Bloody Hell, he even saved the world for her! And he knows already he'll do it again. He'll save it again and again, however many times it takes, just to make certain she's safe. He'll do anything for his Princess, even endure the words she whispers about him when she forgets he can hear her. Or maybe she knows he can hear her and just doesn't have the wits to care.

But one night . . . One night, he'll find a way to make her well. He'll heal her, and she'll finally see what he's been doing for her all this time. She'll finally see she's the reason for their move here, for his countless fights with the Slayer and all the hours he spends studying her every move. She'll finally see that everything he does is for her. He didn't save the world because he's going soft. He saved it, because she's a part of it and saving it also saved her, even if for just a little while longer.

Spike sighs, remembering the way he caught Angel cuddling the Slayer earlier. They hold to one another like they're in some kind of bloody play about lovers, but this is the real world. Their love won't last long. Already the Slayer's beginning to realize that he and Dru share something that she can never have. He heard her mutter about it the very night he helped her save the world. When she last saw him during that time, he heard her talk to herself about how great his love for Drusilla is. He smirks. It's just his luck that the Slayer can see it but the woman he loves, his cherished Princess, can not.

Spike's almost back home when he stops, suddenly realizing that he's coming home empty handed. He swipes at a bruise Angel left on his forehead. The bastard got a lucky punch in just as he was defending himself against his woman. Two against one has never been fair, but then Angel, even as a disgusting hero, has never truly played fair. Dru will be upset though if he comes home empty handed and may well think even less of him or, worse, talk to her doll more about his shortcomings.

Spike returns to the wall surrounding the cemetery. He doesn't have long to wait before a young couple comes walking by. He drops down before them snarling. Both teenagers scream, but it's the boy who turns tail and starts to run. Spike shakes his head. "Pathetic," he growls before knocking both of them unconscious. He takes the boy's blood on the spot but carries the girl home to his Princess.

The guy is like most humans, he thinks, and too many men of all species. He left his woman without a thought, thinking only of saving his own hide. Spike could be like that. He could leave his Princess as she claims the stars warn her he will. He could leave her to fend for her own self and to die in the Slayer's hands. Almost any female Vampire or Demon would join him at this time, but he doesn't want any of them. Even as a Vampire, he's always been a one-woman-only kind of bloke.

"Spikey's home, Princess!" he calls out as he enters their hideaway. Some of his minions look at him, but one glower from his furious eyes shuts them all down before they dare to speak one word. He's not a typical Vampire. A typical Vampire - a typical bloke even - would have left Drusilla long ago, but he's better than that. He's better than any of them know.

"I'm home, pet, and I've brought you a gift," he calls again, slipping into the familiar, welcoming shadows of the boudoir he shares with his Princess. She looks up at him from where she's combing Miss Edith's hair with her long, delicate fingers. He throws the teenager at her feet and sniffs the air around her again. "Rare delicacy, that one," he remarks. "The nose doesn't lie. She's still a virgin."

"Yummy," Drusilla croons, but then she pulls back in her chair and looks up at him. Her big, black eyes seem almost to glow in the darkness. "You smell of the Slayer."

"She and Angel got the jump on me," he tells her. It's a slight lie. He should have known better than to walk so close to them, but he'd wondered if he could use the element of surprise to his advantage and had walked closer to them while investigating the possibility. A noise elsewhere in the cemetery had distracted him for a slight second, and when he'd turned back around, he'd literally turned back into Angel's fist.

Drusilla sniffs. "I do smell Daddy," she says. "We need him back. Daddy would stop the Slayer."

"I told you, pet," Spike says, still working on his frayed nerves and realizing that his walk had failed to calm them down as much as he'd needed it to. "I'm going to stop the Slayer."

Drusilla giggles. Anger flushes Spike. "Think that's funny, do you?" he growls.

Her face goes calm again. She looks up at him with all the innocence of a child. "No," she answers, "but Miss Edith does."

"Tell Miss Edith to mind her own business and let you eat your dinner." Spike cups Drusilla's face with a gentility that would surprise any one that a Vampire could possess and lightly kisses her forehead. "Eat up, luv. Then come join me."

"Are you going brooding some more?"

"Yes, but I'll stay home this time, I promise. The sun isn't far from rising. Eat up. You need your strength, and virgin blood's good for that too." Blood makes their veins sing with power, and no blood is more powerful than that of an unspoiled virgin. He turns to walk away.

He's back at the door again when Drusilla calls to him. "Spike?"

"Yeah, baby?"

"Promise me one thing," she asks softly.

"Anything," he vows, gazing deeply into her eyes despite the distance separating them.

"Promise me you'll love me forever - "

He smiles. "Already do, pet."

" - and that you'll stay with me forever."

Seeing the fear in her eyes and hearing it in her voice, he crosses the room until he's able to kneel before her. He takes her hands in his, lifting them away from her doll, and kisses the back of each one. He touches her forehead with his own and gazes straight into her eyes. "I promise, Princess. I'm not going anywhere. You can't chase me away. I'll be right here with you forever, and I'll love you forever. I promise."

His lips touch hers. He wants to drink of her. Need stirs within him, but he knows she's still too weak. He forces himself to peel back and kiss her forehead chastely once more. "You'll see," he vows. "I'm yours forever." He forces himself to walk away, not seeing the tears that well in her eyes or the doll's head that turns to watch him.

Miss Edith whispers on the wind. Silent tears drip down Drusilla's face. All Vampires are good liars, but her Spikey, she thinks, may well be the best.

=^.^=

With a savage growl, Spike throws his bottle of whisky against the wall of the otherwise empty mansion. The breaking glass does nothing to reassure him. His heart still feels dead in his chest except for the pain that eats away at him every waking moment. He had promised, and he had kept his promise! She was the one who had left him!

He sinks to the mansion's floor and weeps openly, bitterly, thinking that perhaps humans are right after all. Vampires are monsters who are incapable of love, as his Princess proved herself unable, moving from him to the next, biggest, baddest thing time and again. But he isn't like other Vampires. He doesn't seek the next biggest, baddest thing. He only wants his Princess to love him again, but she never will and never really had.

He isn't like other Vampires, and he hadn't been like other humans, either, when he'd been among them. He is a monster, a monster capable of love, a monster who had loved with everything in his being, but who, ultimately, remains incapable of earning love in return. He weeps, and somewhere, a doll laughs.

The End


End file.
